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This website was developed for the exhibition Irriṯitja Kuwarri Tjungu | Past & Present Together: Fifty Years of Papunya Tula Artists that was on view at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia from 2021-23 and the Embassy of Australia in Washington, DC in 2024. It was made possible by our creative partnership with Papunya Tula Artists and the generous support of UVA Arts Council. Site design by Urban Fugitive for V21 Artspace.
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Inyuwa Nampitjinpa

Travels of Kutungu from Papunnga to Muruntji
1999

This work was included in the exhibition Dreaming their Way organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. It was the first major exhibition of Indigenous Australian women artists to be shown in the USA.

This work depicts the narrative of Kutungu—also known as Walinngi—an ancestral woman who began her travels from tjungutjarrpanguru (where the sun goes down), moving eastward and creating a range of hills south of the Kiwirrkurra road. She hunted, as is common among desert women, with a wana (digging stick) and a piti (coolamon).

Her activities left  their  record  on  the  land  at  places  such  as  Papunnga,  Ngartannga,  Yarrannga,  Wanatjalnga  and, eventually,  at Muruntji. At Papunnga, Kutungu saw a group of people playing on a sandhill and trapped them in a hole. Fanning a  fire (papuntjuninpa means “to fan”), she smoked the hole, putting the people to death. Later, she dug up their bodies and cooked and ate them. Near Muruntji, Kutungu fell asleep and was found by a group of boys, one of whom raped her while she slept. She set out for the boys, tracked them, killed them with her digging stick and cooked and ate them. The distinctive rock formations at Muruntji record this event.  As she crawled off, toward Kantawanya, she vomited, leaving a mark in the landscape, and turned into a water snake.

Kutungu had sharp teeth. She was killing all the women and kids and they turned into round, flat puli (stones).

BOBBY WEST TJUPURRULA

Language Group: Pintupi
Dates: 1922–1999

Inyuwa Nampitjinpa was born at Punkilpirri, a major rockhole site south of the Tjukurla community and north-west of Docker River. She is the mother of Walangkura Napanangka and Pirrmangka Napanangka, who both painted for Papunya Tula Artists. Inyuwa started painting in 1996 and took off in 1997 after the removal of her cataracts. Although she passed away only two years later, she produced a steady stream of innovative works between 1997 and 1999. In June 1999, shortly before her death, she became one of the first women from Papunya Tula to be given a solo exhibition of her works, held at the prestigious Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in Melbourne. She is represented in the National Gallery of Victoria, which holds eleven of her works.

Are you related to this artist? Are you a scholar of artwork from the Papunya Tula movement? Please contact us at kluge-ruhe@virginia.edu if you would like to add something to this page or see something that is missing or incorrect.
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